I don't care if the head of the Xbox division is a guy or a girl... if they aren't a GAMER, they shouldn't be there.

It's like putting Bonnie Hammer, an person who admits she doesn't like Sci-Fi, in charge of a science Fiction network... oh wait....

So this new division head will want to shape the Xbox One even more into a "media appliance" so they can watch their cable box through it and continue to denigrate gamers who lack decent broadband, and not understand the fuss over intrusive DRM or privacy issues. Yipee!

NostroZ:Telos: NostroZ: Mike_LowELL: Yay! A video games and feminism thread! And I'm actually going to be around for the moment it hits the main page! It's going to be fun destroying every one of you!

Video games are an extension of hunting for males. While there were female hunters, they tended to be more gatherers.

Going from that basic pre-supposition of our evolutionary biology and the fact that males see moving objects better than females, video games focus on quick reflexes and favor males.

Hence; the majority of games, which have fast reaction time to moving objects as the source of the winning objective results in video games being designed, created, and played by MEN.

Your move. Sir.

Yeah, which is why there are no games whatsoever based on gathering!

Purely gathering games like the Sims are played by women.

Gathering for men is akin to trophies for their kills and/or better weapons to hunt with as the prime reason... for women, it is to have something nice to look at and others look at*.

*highly generalized and obviously there are exceptions to the rule... I'm talking about 90% guys playing reflex games vs. 70% women playing gathering games (as being major indicators of trend / our socialization differences).

Listen. I don't want to insult you. I don't think you're dumb or sexist at all.But don't you think your arguments on evolutionary biology and hunting vs gathering sound an awful lot like other disturbing racist and sexist arguments?

Like how slave owners argued that black people were obviously dumb and stronger than white people so that made it ok to enslave them? Fast twitch muscle fiber? Does any of this ring any alarm bells?

What you just wrote would probably go over pretty well with the Taliban telling their women to get back into kitchen and gather/arrange while the men go out and hunt.

I don't think this is your intention at all but these wide sweeping "biological" arguments seem to always be used more for evil than for good.

I think we shouldn't worry so much about what divides men and women in likes and dislikes. Having to 'prove' why some women like to knit doesn't do anything to help. Instead just concentrate on liking what you like.

The Stealth Hippopotamus:I just don't understand why girl/ladies/women want to be sheltered as a protected group. My point (maybe I wasn't clear) was that the insults that are flung at the boys are targeted to hurt them on topics they care about. And if you want gender equality, you're going to have to understand that when you are insulted they will be targeting topics that are meaningful to women. It's how insulting works. If they aren't targeting topics you care about then they arn't trying to insult you.

Women don't want to be "sheltered" or "protected" more than men.

Women know that the first thing people are going to tell her, when they are angry with her, that she's ugly.

They also know that they will be called a coont. That they should be raped. That they are worthless and can't do anything as good as men ever.

The point feminists are trying to make is that these type of insults are different. If you're claiming that they are the same type of insults men receive, well I guess we just disagree.

I think these types of insults are different because they don't just insult the specific women, they perpetuate misogyny against all women. The implication that a woman's entire self worth should be damaged by being called an ugly slut attacks on two fronts: By being hurtful and insulting, and also reaffirming misogyny.

This is what I believe, you don't have to. Women are tired of being insulted nearly entirely in sexual terms while men aren't. They also would like to be raped less, but that's a whole another discussion.

tlchwi02:way south: /I'm curious how the new system is going to regulate that, but not expecting it to be a complete solution.

the old system let you block people pretty easily (even if it just meant plugging in the headset and then just not putting it on your head.) I imagine they'll just continue that

That's what I had to do.

The whole travesty of it depressed me. I had wanted online networked voice chat for multiplayer games ever since I read some blurb about the future Sega Dreamcast back in the 90s

Now we have it, and it is mostly completely worthless. A cesspool.

Just the fact that so many people say such awful things, for no reason, annoys me. I don't want to outlaw it or hunt them down and crotchpunch them, but it irritates me that we have this amazing thing and its mostly ruined because most participants act incredibly rude.

I guess this makes me an old fart now. I just thought eventually our online dealings would mimic our real life dealings.

I don't give a shiat who runs the company as long as they produce a product I want to buy.

And as a throwback to the female video game lead character issue, every video game lead is so far removed from any resemblance to me and my life that programming them breasts will not affect my immersion in the game at all.

For some reason if you even insinuate that there's some sexism floating around in the videogame industry legions of gamers will clutch their pearls like you personally called them a sexist pig and disprove you with a picture of Samus from 1986.

The comments this Atlantic article points out are unacceptable, and I don't see the problem with pointing that out. That doesn't mean if you own an xbox the atlantic is saying you're aiding and abetting misogyny, which is bizarrely how so many people seem to act.

The Stealth Hippopotamus:I dont know your situation or anything but I don't think you've been around a bunch of guy insulting and trash talking but "you going to get fu*k" is fairly common and talking about raping someone (another male) is also fairly common. Hell the act of tea bagging someone (simulating forcing sexual organs into someone mouth or onto another the person's body) is about as rapely as you can get though a game like Halo. And guys do that to guys all the time. Can't do something as well as men?! Please. Have you ever hear a man tell another man to "man up"? Same same. He is calling him a boy and that he should act like a man.

Most of the time when women are complaining about being treated unfairly it is because they are being treated like one of the guy.

And these feminists are the ones that say that calling a women ugly is super hurtful and by trying to shelter them they are implying that they can't handle it. If anything the feminists as you call them are the ones that are insulting women the most.

The only reason I'm letting you know all this is because I don't want you to feel singled out when a guy is an arsehole to you. We're arsehole to each other all the time dont feel special. Instead if a guy is actually nice to you understand that guy really really like you and you should be nice to him back.

I don't care about insults, but what pisses me off is when guys automatically say "oh it's a girl and girls suck at games so we don't want to play with you" before you even do anything. Not that that happens often, but it happens from time to time. At worst it's annoying. It's also kind of sad to see that that has been mentioned in this thread lol.

Of course what pisses me off more than that is the statement that women only play games like Bejeweled or the Sims and therefore aren't "real" gamers and thus their opinions on games are irrelevant. Of course all of those things are false. It would be like me saying that guys only play CoD and Halo and therefore their opinions on games are irrelevant.

I think the problem is that everyone in the media at all times takes some comments by a few rotten apples and makes it out like it is all gamers. Not all gamers are like that. How dare every media outlet that has every existed take such an over the top position?

I understand what you're saying. But the accusation you're insinuating feminists make isn't really happening.

Most feminists aren't making the case that this minority of idiots speaks for the whole community. They aren't even displeased that a minority of idiots exists.

The thing they are displeased about is the specific TYPE of insults that fly around when the target is a woman instead of a man. No one was commenting on Don Mattrick looks. No one was implying that he was a complete figurehead who can't compete. No one was bemoaning that Don Mattrick was going to make "hunting and fishing" games or somesuch shiat.

The entire spectrum of insults against women seem to come from such a different place than men. And people's refusal to recognize it, or denounce it is what causes feminists to rage.

Thankfully, I've effectively cut myself out of the toxic parts of the videogame community. It's really easy once you stop playing xbox live and LoL and just play games with your friends. I wish the feminists luck, but they aren't just banging up against the trolly idiots of the videogame world, they're running against western culture itself. And I don't think people really care.

Look getting a feminists panties in a wad is damn near as easy as getting an old rich white dude's panties in a wad.

it is so damn easy that you dont even really need to try, it just happens.

one day when the self righteousness of it all has gone away then I will be more inclined to give a damn aand mabey even be supportive of it.

Mike_LowELL:It's already beginning to blow up--THQ, the Vita, the Wii U--and it's only gonna be a matter of who else gets burned. Got too big for its own good, games got too expensive for their own good.

The WiiU was more of a marketing failure... Not many people were aware it was a new console, rather than an accessory for the Wii. And no one buys a $400 accessory for the Wii, not when Nintendo might be releasing a whole new console any day now. ;)

Theaetetus:NostroZ: Mike_LowELL: Yay! A video games and feminism thread! And I'm actually going to be around for the moment it hits the main page! It's going to be fun destroying every one of you!

Video games are an extension of hunting for males. While there were female hunters, they tended to be more gatherers.

Going from that basic pre-supposition of our evolutionary biology...

Oh, I'm sorry, I thought you were attempting to make a scientific point. Mythology class is down the hall.

1) You are not Mike_LowELL with whom I was having the discussion with.

2) Mythology is the study of myths. I referenced an article about basic male v. female differences from NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC. This would be BIOLOGY class, which you obviously failed to attend -or English class, as you do not understand basic differences in academic studies.

3) Blindness to differences between people does not make you a better person, it makes you a more ignorant one.

Esc7:Hey if you think this sort of thing is OK, there's nothing I can do to stop you.

I just don't understand why girl/ladies/women want to be sheltered as a protected group. My point (maybe I wasn't clear) was that the insults that are flung at the boys are targeted to hurt them on topics they care about. And if you want gender equality, you're going to have to understand that when you are insulted they will be targeting topics that are meaningful to women. It's how insulting works. If they aren't targeting topics you care about then they arn't trying to insult you.

I'd love to live in a world where people didn't feel the need to insult other people. But we don't and we won't this does not mean I'm ok with it.

I think the problem is that everyone in the media at all times takes some comments by a few rotten apples and makes it out like it is all gamers. Not all gamers are like that. How dare every media outlet that has every existed take such an over the top position?

I understand what you're saying. But the accusation you're insinuating feminists make isn't really happening.

Most feminists aren't making the case that this minority of idiots speaks for the whole community. They aren't even displeased that a minority of idiots exists.

The thing they are displeased about is the specific TYPE of insults that fly around when the target is a woman instead of a man. No one was commenting on Don Mattrick looks. No one was implying that he was a complete figurehead who can't compete. No one was bemoaning that Don Mattrick was going to make "hunting and fishing" games or somesuch shiat.

The entire spectrum of insults against women seem to come from such a different place than men. And people's refusal to recognize it, or denounce it is what causes feminists to rage.

Thankfully, I've effectively cut myself out of the toxic parts of the videogame community. It's really easy once you stop playing xbox live and LoL and just play games with your friends. I wish the feminists luck, but they aren't just banging up against the trolly idiots of the videogame world, they're running against western culture itself. And I don't think people really care.

Esc7:For some reason if you even insinuate that there's some sexism floating around in the videogame industry legions of gamers will clutch their pearls like you personally called them a sexist pig and disprove you with a picture of Samus from 1986.

The comments this Atlantic article points out are unacceptable, and I don't see the problem with pointing that out. That doesn't mean if you own an xbox the atlantic is saying you're aiding and abetting misogyny, which is bizarrely how so many people seem to act.

The biggest issue I have with the article is that it conflates legitimate criticism (that she doesn't have any video-game industry experience) with idiotic misogyny.

It's not clear how much Larson-Green does or does not love the gaming industry, however. Assuming she doesn't love video games comes off as sexist, argues Wainwright. (Would people jump to say that about a dude?-Wainwright suggests not.)

Translation: The person who was taking free goodies from Square-Enix and threatened a U.K.-style libel suit against a company whose writer pointed this fact out questions the integrity of others.